Wednesday May 15th. 1771.

Argued before the Sessions the Question whether the Court had Authority by Law to
make an Allowance of Wages and Expences, above the Fees established by Law to the
Jurors, who tryed C[aptain] Preston and the Soldiers. The two Quincys, Otis and Adams, argued.1 Otis is the same Man he used to be—

He spares nor Friend nor Foe, but calls to Mind

like Doomsday, all the faults of all Mankind.

He will certainly soon relapse into his former Condition. He trembles. His Nerves
are irritable. He cannot bear Fatigue.—“Brother A. has argued so prodigiously like
a Rep[resentative] that I cant help considering him as the Ghost of one”—&c.2

1. The subject thus argued was explained and commented on by Josiah Quincy Jr. in an
anonymous article in the Boston Gazette, 20 May 1771, which will also be found in Quincy's Reports, p. 382–386. The trials of Preston and the soldiers had for the first time in the
history of the Massachusetts courts required keeping the jury together for more than
one day, and the Superior Court therefore “Ordered, that it be recommended” to the
Court of General { 15 } Sessions to make “a reasonable Allowance”of money to the jurors for their protracted
service. The jurors then petitioned for this allowance, but the Court of Sessions
“having a Doubt of their Power touching the Grant of the Prayer thereof, ordered the
Petition to stand over for Argument at the Sessions in April.” The argument took place
on 15 May, as JA records, and required the whole day. The prayer was refused on the ground “that the
only Power of the Sessions to grant Monies must be derived from provincial Law,” and certainly not from an order or recommendation of the Superior Court. The itemized
bill for lodging and subsisting the jurors in the soldiers' trial, a highly interesting
document, is printed by John Noble in Col. Soc. Mass., Pubns., 5 (1902):59–60.

2. On 7 May Otis had been elected a Boston representative to the General Court in the
place of JA.